Does the Bill of Rights Need Revision?

Abstract

THE bill of rights in the present Constitution of Pennsylvania is an article which contains twenty-six sections. The sections make interesting reading. They start out with a general declaration about natural rights of mankind, pass to more definite sections forbidding attainder, quartering of troops without the consent of the owner, and the granting of titles of nobility or hereditary distinction, and declare against the prohibition of emigration from the State. This last provision is a puzzling one. It comes down to us from the constitution of 1776, and has remained, with few changes, ever since. Why, one may ask, should any one want to emigrate from Penn's Woods? And why, if somebody might conceivably have such a queer desire, did colonial constitution-makers think his gratification of it so important as to write it into the basic law? One may have a guess, but he may not have a judicial answer, for no restless Daniel Boone ever seems to have had occasion to appeal for constitutional protection against a legislature seeking to restrain him from roaming beyond the borders of the State whenever his fancy prompted him so to do.